YouTube is always a classically great source of good information of all kinds. This especially holds true for rare or sensational information regarding to be released games. PlanetSide 2 has done just that, with some new gameplay videos on the PS4 that even show frame times.
PlanetSide 2 PS4 beta video footage shows some surprising frame rate performance results.
DigitalFoundry has graced us with a rather telling video that shows us just how PlanetSide 2 performs on the PS4 thus far. Visually the game is as striking as ever with the fidelity approaching that of the PC's ultra preset, though perhaps the draw distance is less as is the overall LOD. The goal of the development team has been to be able to achieve a sort of parity with the level of graphical detail that closely resembles the PC. This can be achieved by adjusting the various settings internally in order to better optimize PlanetSide 2 specifically for the PS4.
Specifically it appears from scrutinizing the videos and screenshots that the particle details, texture resolution and even the lighting quality are all very similar across the platforms. Post-processing AA also seems to be used readily and to great effect, as the blur effect resulting from that type of AA can help to mask any differences in a subtle yet effective way.
The performance, however, cannot compete with high-end PC's, though it was never truly meant to. The final build is going to be capped at 30FPS in order to provide a smoother overall experience. But currently the beta of PlanetSide 2 is running without v-sync enabled to get a better handle on optimization.
Analyzing the video is a great deal of fun. The performance isn't terrible by any means, but it doe show the limitations of the PS4's ability to handle large, open environments with substantial numbers of players at a time. This means that at times the overall performance can reach near the magical 60FPS threshold when there is little action and less terrain to render. But once you start putting other player models, their movements and the particles that result, in addition to some of the complex building geometry and effects, then the performance varies far more wildly moving between 26-45FPS. We can see just what kind of detail is included on the PS4 below.
Unfortunately this early PlanetSide 2 footage only proves to show the limitations of the PS4's ability to provide detailed visuals within the context of a massive open-world game. GTA V already have us a glimpse of what the future holds for these consoles due to the already relatively low frame rate associated with trying to bring PC-like graphics to them. Quite frankly the stuttering and slow-downs in GTA V on consoles has been rather atrocious, despite the overall stunning visuals it provided.
I have high hopes for PlanetSide 2, as I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the beta on PC so long ago, but I don't think it's going to be quite as popular on the PS4, mostly because players are going to have to be broken up into more instances than on PC in order to keep performance acceptable. Unfortunately there just isn't any game that has this type of scale on a console. GTA V has a large map, but not quite like this.
Does the performance necessarily equate to a bad experience? Perhaps not, but with PlanetSide 2 still in it's beta stage, it's hard to really tell. We can only hope that it'll bring something new to the PS4's table.
Thanks to DigitalFoundry for the awesome video and great screenshots.
